Call Blocking Devices

I have a call blocker called "persont2person" that was discontinued a couple of years ago, but very similar to the Digitone product.   It's still cranking along and working effectively.    Also, I like it for the psychological effect in that it gives me a sense of satisfaction every time I walk by it in my office and see the little red light blinking, indicating a blocked number tried to get through, but couldn't.   Makes me feel as though I can fight back and don't have to take the abuse.

See my message about TrueCall.  I'm still very happy with it. Does exactly what you want -- and then some.

Other than jail, the scammers worst nightmare is a Call Blocker. A Call Blocker that lets you program specific numbers and block the rest.

That's what TrueCall does.

I actually added another level the other day. Since some robo-calls timing was such that they appeared to be identifying themselves my phone would ring anyway. I now use "shield" as well as whisper. Now when someone not on my Star list (whitelist) calls they are first asked to press a number key ("5", for example) and then to identify themselves. Only if they do both will my phone ring. Think of it is a phone "CAPTCHA".

Call Clerk does the same as Phone Tray.

Too bad Phone Tray needs a dial up connection but still it's better than nothing. Cnet.com has the free version, while the one on their website is a paid version.

Huh? PhoneTray Dialup needs a dialup link, as the name suggests. The primary version is agnostic to the type of landline service. They each require a POTS *modem*, a device which is a trivial purchase now due to its march to obsolescence.

I can't figure out if I could even use it or how.  My fiber connection has no modem. My router is just plugged into the wall outlet with a cat 5 cable.

This is, unfortunately, the best solution I can come up with. I bought a VERY loud whistle and when the phone rings, I quickly scan the ever expanding list of crap numbers. If I find a repeat offender, bingo. I have my revenge. If there's a human on the other end, I blow the whistle. If not, I just let it hang there for a while, confusing their system. It's not a great solution but when you get a live one, it certainly makes you feel a little better.

I lost in touch with 56k a long time ago. I hated playing online games on 56k cause it lagged like a snail. If 56k was slow, 14.4k was worse. Phonetray and other call blocking software vendors should start making apps for cell phones, and modern landlines. There should be a free as well as the paid version. Both versions should have unlimited blocking capacity.

To the people who get calls from credit card scammers for the first time. If you see "Important" "Attention" "Card Services" "Survey" "Research" "Government Grants" "Fax Machine Beep" "Unavailable" "Out of Area" "Member Services" "Lower your Interest Rate" "Vacations" "Donkey Crap" etc ignore those calls, report those numbers and block them. These calls are made by a bunch of worthless parasites hired by other parasites to make a quick buck claiming to be legit call center employees and telemarketers. They aren't selling anything or providing you any service. These weaklings are calling you from South Asia, Central America, South East Asia, and even from the the U.S. The rotten human beings live in their boiler rooms and they are planning on burying themselves there. Their parents have no idea what their sons and daughters are upto.

Even though most of the callers have South East Asian, South Asian, American, Central American Spanish accents, there are a bunch of African parasites working with them as well. Mostly West African. Nigeria is a hub for a majority of scam that comes out of Africa. The rest are wimps from Puerto Rico, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. If some Chinese fraud calls you, that fraud must be from China or hiding somewhere in South East Asia. Eastern European frauds have a slavic accent. All these vermins focus on people living in English speaking countries such as the U.S, U.K, Canada, Australia etc.

Yes, I have a panasonic phone and I have always chosen them as the best phone for me.  But what I dont like about their call blocking feature is that you still have to hear that first initial ring, before it goes into blocking mode.  If you have a few of these calls a day, it is still very irritating.  I was so happy to find out if you have comcast service for your phone that you can go on line and iliminate all blocked numbers, thats helped, but the feature I love is that they will block any number you want for free, and it solves everything, but the bad thing is they will onley block TWELVE NUMBERS, mines full and Im looking for another solution.

Some one should make a device that would "block all" area codes except the ones we OK, and "block all" numbers except the ones we OK. Most of us could limit our calls to 2 or 3 area codes and less than 100 numbers. This would be great.

"Some one[sic] should..."

Easily done with Asterisk, or by using the special features offered by a number of VOIP providers.  Of course, the callers can also easily spoof any caller ID they want in order to bypass such an arrangement.  

Since most folks would choose to allow the area code of their own number, it would be dead simple for the caller to nullify your proposed strategy.  The caller could simply script their dialer to spoof the outbound CID to match the destination AC.  In fact, this is already being done by some junk callers on the theory that you are more likely to pick up what appears to be a "local" call.

So, nice idea, but probably not a very effective defense.